Summary
In the gritty urban tapestry of "Brick Dust Row," Florence, a skilled milliner, navigates the precarious social landscape alongside her roommate, Ella. Their meager lodgings, a consequence of the absentee millionaire landlord's avarice, force them into the public parks for any semblance of social interaction, rendering innocent encounters tragically misconstrued. Florence's burgeoning affection for Blinker is brutally extinguished when he, blinded by conventional morality and a classist prejudice, condemns her perceived promiscuity, declaring her unfit for matrimony. A harrowing ordeal unfolds aboard a burning excursion vessel, where Bill, a rugged protector with a hidden heart, heroically rescues both Florence and her judgmental suitor. Upon discerning Blinker's callousness, Bill orchestrates a confrontation with the very capitalist whose systemic exploitation underpins Florence's vulnerable existence. The ensuing revelation exposes Blinker's hypocrisy, transforming his self-righteous condemnation into a mirror reflecting his own materialistic motivations, culminating in a transformed "Brick Dust Row" as a poignant, if belated, wedding gift for Florence.
Synopsis
Florence is a little milliner who shares a room in "Brick Dust Row" with Ella, a fellow worker. It is all the home she has and the girls have to receive their company in the parks because there is no reception room, the millionaire owner of the Row having sublet the parlors. They see no harm in chance acquaintances. Then Florence meets Blinker, and real love comes into her life; but Blinker learns of what to him seems her promiscuous acquaintances and makes it plain that he cannot marry such a woman. There is a fire on the excursion boat on which they are traveling, and Bill, a gun-packing husky, who has constituted himself Florence's champion, saves them both. Then he learns Blinker's attitude, and a visit to the young millionaire owner of the Roy shows Blinker that his own greed is basis for Florence's actions and a changed Row is Florence's wedding present. - Moving Picture World 1918.
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